An Eclectic Journal of Opinion, History, Poetry and General Bloviating

Friday, November 6, 2015

The Welcoming Committee at the Dock Opened Fire

The headline in the local paper and a contemporary photo of the Everett dock.

Note:When
I was posting a silly poem and a plug for a church coffee house event
yesterday, I let an important anniversary slip by.

Back
in 1916 the town of Everett in the
heart of Washington state’s timber region was not what you would
call a laborfriendly town.The city and
surrounding Snohomish County governments
were firmly in the hands of lumber and
commercial interests determined to
keep any kind of unionism out of the woods.And they meant to enforce their will with special deputies and vigilantes
organized by the Commercial Club.Things had been dangerous for unionists for
some time.On November 5 they turned deadly when two boats of Wobblies tried
to dock for a rally in support of strikingAFL Shingle weavers.

1916
was a panic year and around the
country construction ground to a
near halt and with it demand for lumber.Already tense with long term efforts of both the American Federation of Labor and the more militant Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) to organize in the woods, industry
bosses decided to step up opposition.

The
IWW was especially feared.It had
already launched several Free Speech
Fightsclogging local jails with
prisoners for the right to soap box.That soap boxing was an important organizing
tool to educate men to break the power of the job sharks who contracted labor for the remote lumber camps.Worse, even without formal recognition, IWW job
delegates were organizing in the camps, getting men to lay down their tools after 8 hours, burning vermin infested bedding, and abandoning camps entirely at critical
production times.The union was thus
able to actually enforce working
conditions even where the bosses would not speak to it.

The
AFL, a union representing skilled
craftsmen and ignoring more manual
casual laborers, had been seen, however reluctantly by some, as a safety valve to keep workers out of the
notorious Red union.In other areas of the state the AFL had been
able to gain recognition.

Not
around Snohomish County.When Shingle
Weavers went out on strike for recognition that summer, they discovered just how
determined authorities were to keep them out.On August 19 a group of strikers were waylaid, ambushed, and trapped on a railway trestle outside of Everett and many were beaten severely with clubs, whips, and axe handles.

Relationships
were often tense on the official level between the AFL and IWW.The Seattle
based IWW newspaper The Industrial Worker often derided conservative “business unionism”
and poked fun at workers swallowing the boss’s or AFL lines in Mr. Block Cartoon and in song lyrics by
Joe Hill.But on the principle of solidarity, there was no division.IWW leadership and members determined to come to the aid of the besieged
Shingle Weavers.

The
Wobblies tried to open a hall in Everett.Sheriff Donald McRae, who
organized and led the legal posse and Commercial Club goons, quickly shut it
down.On September 11 IWW organizer James Rowan was seized and taken to the woods where he was sadistically beaten.Responding to calls in the Industrial
Worker for reinforcements over
the next month or so about 400 Wobs drifted into town in groups only to be met
by armed violence and driven away.

On
October 30 about 40 harvest stiffs
arrived from the wheat fields in
eastern Washington.They were rounded up
as they arrived on freight trains and taken to a secluded railway
crossing.There they were made to run a gauntlet over a cattle crossing grating between lines
of club wielding deputies.All were
gruesomely injured.A committee of churchmen investigating
the incident soon after reported finding the men’s skin, hair, and blood still sticking to the grating.Their blistering report and plea to allow free speech to resume in Everett helped shift public opinion.With the advice of the ministers, the IWW circulated a flyer in the town calling
for a mass protest

Meanwhile
the Shingle Weaver strike dragged on.In
Seattle IWW organizers decided it was fruitless and dangerous for small groups
to try and come into town by rail.It
was decided to rally hundreds on a Sunday afternoon, bringing them down from
the city on chartered boats for a
scheduled rally at a local park.

Between
300 and 400 Wobs rallied at the Seattle hall and marched to the water front where they boarded two small steamers, the Verona
carrying the bulk of them and the slower Calista carrying the overflow.

A sketch of deputies firing on the Verona those on board scramble to the other side of the boat causing it to list and dump several men into the harbor.

The
Verona
was well ahead when it pulled up to the dock in Everett.The men on board were singing the IWW version
of Hold
the Fort.Most crowed the rail
on the dock side, eager to get off.Sheriff
McRae and 200 deputies met them.Most
were on or near the dock.A few were hidden in a warehouse and others were
on board a harbor tug, the Edison.

The
Verona managed to come into dock and
got one line looped around a bollard.Sheriff McRae stepped forward, pistol in
hand and asked, “Who’s in charge there?”In true Wobbly fashion and in the tradition of Spartacus the men on the boat yelled back, “We all are!”McRae announced he was “upholding the law”
and that the men would not be able to land.“The hell we can’t,” was the unanimous response.

Seconds
later a first shot was fired.No source
was ever identified, but almost immediately teen age Hugo Gerlot, who had shimmied up a mast to act as a sort of look
out, fell dead to the deck.Then the
whole line of gunmen on the dock and those in the warehouse and on the Edison unloaded a terrible fusillade.

On
board the Verona, the Wobblies
stampeded to the other side of the ship, causing it to nearly capsized and
sending several into the waters Puget
Sound where some drowned.Firing
kept up for almost 10 minutes.The pilot
house was later found to be peppered with more than 177 bullet holes.Captain Chance Wiman only saved himself by crouching behind the
ship’s safe.

After
the ship righted itself from the near capsize, below deck engineerShellgren
frantically and blindly put the engines hardastern.The line tying the ship to the dock finally snapped and she was able
to pull away.Wiman resumed his place at
the wheel, but deputies using hunting rifles continued to pepper the retreating
boat with sniper fire.The Verona met the lagging Calista and frantically signaled her to
turn around.

Death masks of the five known IWW dead.

At
least 5 Wobblies were known dead.But no
manifest was kept and many of the men had just arrived in Seattle in response
to the Industrial Worker calls and
were unknown to others on board.Several
men had gone over board and not all were
accounted for.Some scholars of the
event believe as many as 12 may actually have died of gunshot wounds or drown
and their bodies either never recovered,
or hidden by Everett authorities.27
would be treated for wounds in Seattle, and others undoubtedly likely suffered
minor wounds untreated by medical personnel.

There
was carnage among the attackers, too.Two men in the warehouse died, shot in the back by their comrades in
the wild shooting as no incoming bullet holes were ever found in the
building.Ashore and on the dock 20,
including Sheriff McCrae were injured.Despite claims that they had
been fired upon from the ship, no evidence of that was ever found.IWW leaders regularly and routinely discouraged members from carrying guns.Even if a handful had been armed with concealed hand guns and managed to get
off a shot or two, all of the wounds were from long guns.The Sheriff and his men were the victims of their own crossfire,
especially fire from the Edison.

Despite
this, when the Verona tied up in
Seattle the passengers were arrested.75 of them would be charged with murder.IWW
leader Thomas H. Tracy was the first
to face trial in the hostile Snohomish County courthouse.The trial dragged on for two month.Mountains of testimony and evidence revealed
that the shooting were planned by the
posse, that IWW had either not been shooters or acted in self-defense, and
that the deaths and injuries among the posse members were all “friendly
fire.”Tracy was acquitted in May 1917 and publicity
around the case aroused considerable
public sympathy for the IWW.None of
the other members charged were ever brought to trial.

As
for the Shingle Weavers, well their AFL leaders never came to the defense of
the IWW members who had died trying to aid them.They eventually lost their strike.Many former members took out Red Cards.

With
World War I once again ramping up demand for lumber and labor
shortages as young men were drafted or enlisted, the IWW was able to exert
greater than ever de facto job
control in the region’s lumber camps.Conditions improved, clean bedding was
provided, plentiful and good quality food was on the mess table, the eight hour
day strictly enforced, and the power of the job sharks at least temporarily
broken.This prevailed until after the
war and a new wave of repression in the infamous Red Scare.

An IWW "Silent Agitator" sticker commemorating the Massacre.

The
Everett Massacre is one of several
labor tragedies that occurred in November and which Wobblies annually
commemorate with In November We Remember.The other event include the execution of the Haymarket martyrs, Joe Hill’s death by firing squad, the lynching of Frank Little in Butte, Montana, and the Armistice
Day 1919 attack by an American
Legion mob on an IWW hall in Centralia, Washington and subsequent
lynching of Wesley Everest.

On
a personal note, I spoke in Everett on an IWW soapboxing tour in 1970.Not
only was our street meeting allowed to go on unmolested, but I was interviewed by the local newspaper and featured in a front page article with a big photo.The young reporter who conducted the
interview said I was the first Wobbly the newspaper had actually talked to in
its long history.Later in Seattle on
that same trip the old Norwegian lumber
worker Herb Edwards took me to a nursing home and introduced me to one
of the last surviving veterans of that awful day in 1916.